The Contraband Slot Machine

[micmitja]

Yeah from what I remember the original iteration was really too good to be true as the risk/profit balance was way out of whack. Especially for those who spent a lot of money on cartel packs to get the certificate that was the proverbial slap in the face.

 

But basically initially the rewards were too good and then were nerfed into the ground resulting in an uproar. So BWA with that experience decided it was a good idea to do the same with endgame gearing. First it was too good to be true (4.0) and now it's nerfed into the ground with RNG.

 

Interesting choice.

 

Yeah true.

 

Way i saw it slot machine was expensive around 4 mil (whats equal on todays inflation from 40/100 mil) so not everyone could buy it, i remember that on mine there was always someone gambling i couldn't use it myself when i wanted so based on that lots of ppl closed down their Strongholds. And when they cant have it we cant have it (one of the biggest crying started in this game aka "inflation" even tho this machine was money drain u lost up to 50% investment when u were selling reputation).

 

And yeah we know how they do with good things, they don't know how to balance anything they know just how to nerf it to the ground (render useless) we seen that allot over years with classes or companions or latest gold mobs from 10/1 and now they fix it to 2/10.

 

They did promise us more of those machines different reputation, but i guess to avoid this whole process again they just forgot about whole thing.

 

In the end they did wait couple of weeks for sellers to buy their usual quantity of hypercrates some even more than usual because machine was selling good. Before they nerf it. Thats all that matters

Edited December 13, 2016 by micmitja

[Xina_LA]

On average, it costs 2.5 million credits to get one Cartel Certificate out of a Contraband slot machine.

That does NOT need nerfing. Nerfing that any farther would make the machine a complete waste of time.

 

I would love to see the addition of more playable slot machines that drop various types of rep or tokens.

 

What ever happened to the Nightlife event promised for this summer? I hope it will still return soon.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Xina_LA

[ivanhedgehog]

Yeah true.

 

Way i saw it slot machine was expensive around 4 mil (whats equal on todays inflation from 40/100 mil) so not everyone could buy it, i remember that on mine there was always someone gambling i couldn't use it myself when i wanted so based on that lots of ppl closed down their Strongholds. And when they cant have it we cant have it (one of the biggest crying started in this game aka "inflation" even tho this machine was money drain u lost up to 50% investment when u were selling reputation).

 

And yeah we know how they do with good things, they don't know how to balance anything they know just how to nerf it to the ground (render useless) we seen that allot over years with classes or companions or latest gold mobs from 10/1 and now they fix it to 2/10.

 

They did promise us more of those machines different reputation, but i guess to avoid this whole process again they just forgot about whole thing.

 

In the end they did wait couple of weeks for sellers to buy their usual quantity of hypercrates some even more than usual because machine was selling good. Before they nerf it. Thats all that matters

 

the people crying were the people selling overpriced crafting mats on the GTN. The csm got a lot of people interested in crafting that werent before. the nuked it 4 days later. while the jawa junk may have been too plentiful, what they did was way beyond over the top.

[LordArtemis]

The nerf itself was too heavy across the board, but I think an adjustment was needed to all of the drop rates.

 

My main beef was the entire thing...releasing it as it was, then putting out a statement that sounded reasonable IMO, to effectively killing the thing for (I would argue) most folks in the playerbase.

 

It had potential, certainly. Could have been a great credit sink, a source for certs (considering they are now ridiculously rare), a small portion of junk of all types (but much lighter on the rare purple, the drop rate was far too high on that).

 

They did, to their credit, improve crafting missions, times and payouts. So they solved one of the reasons the nerf hit as hard as it did back then.

 

It is just too bad, IMO, that the payout/cost rates could not have been matched with missions, so it would have provided a bonus or alternative to running missions without disrupting the economy.

[Andryah]

LOL, confused <> salty. People (including me) discussed the abusive drop rate of the certs (which is what you mean when you say "the whole loot table"), they just didn't get *as much* air time because they were much less problematic -- but "much less problematic" than [purple] jawa junk is a *far* cry from being anywhere close to acceptable as was.

 

Certs needed to be nerfed -- not necessarily as hard as they were, but they needed nerfing. The only thing patch notes would have given you is another 24 hours or so of abusing the machine. Quit acting like *the lack of notice* was the straw that broke your back.

 

You are so out of context in this reply it's just silly.

 

A) I was simply reinforcing the fact that yes.. many people believed the drop rates on purple jawa junk was too high and needed toning down. The studio first said working as intended, then later agreed, and then did much much more. The high purple drop rates were undermining the purple materials market for crafters and so yeah.. it did have merit in some tweaking.

 

B) Some people also objected to cert drop rates too... but not nearly to the magnitude you are stating. Nor did the studio ever comment on cert drop rates, or blue junk drop rates, or green drop rates, or token refund rates.... yet they severely nerfed them all. No toning down... they just outright nuked them.

 

C) I said nothing about patch notes whatsoever... so stop with the deliberate misdirecton. My comments were about ongoing forum discussion, including comments by the studio, in the time prior to the studio patching.

 

What players ended up with was a reputation token dispenser. It probably should have been released that way to begin with and players would have embraced it for what it was. Then, we might also have gotten slots for other Galactic Market rep factions as well. Instead... they killed the idea completely.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Andryah

[DawnAskham]

the people crying were the people selling overpriced crafting mats on the GTN. The csm got a lot of people interested in crafting that werent before. the nuked it 4 days later. while the jawa junk may have been too plentiful, what they did was way beyond over the top.

 

The only people crying were and still are those that to stupid to see Bioware was not going to let a stronghold decoration turn into a credit printing press that also bypassed CM packs as the way to get CM certs while handing out free crafting mats.

 

But it is good to see so much butt hurt still exists after all these years - makes me laugh.

[LordArtemis]

The only people crying were and still are those that to stupid to see Bioware was not going to let a stronghold decoration turn into a credit printing press that also bypassed CM packs as the way to get CM certs while handing out free crafting mats.

 

But it is good to see so much butt hurt still exists after all these years - makes me laugh.

 

Actually there was plenty of that from both sides of the fence...and it seems folks on both sides are still upset about it now...

 

Case in point? Your post and others like it. Glass houses....

[eartharioch]

A) I was simply reinforcing the fact that yes.. many people believed the drop rates on purple jawa junk was too high and needed toning down. The studio first said working as intended, then later agreed, and then did much much more. The high purple drop rates were undermining the purple materials market for crafters and so yeah.. it did have merit in some tweaking.

BW did not say that it was "working as intended", they said that it wasn't bugged, that it wasn't an exploit to use it, and they would look at the Jawa Junk drop rate. Their stated intent was to provide a fun experience, based on feedback from the nightlife event. That is from the first post in this thread. There was never an intent to have this replace gathering/mission skills for mats or packs for certs. The fact that it functioned to do those to things should have put people on notice that it wasn't going to last.

 

IMO, everybody knew it was broken. There's a difference between a reason and an excuse. People used BW statements as an *excuse*, not a *reason*, to believe what they wanted to believe instead of what they could actually see.

 

B) Some people also objected to cert drop rates too... but not nearly to the magnitude you are stating. Nor did the studio ever comment on cert drop rates, or blue junk drop rates, or green drop rates, or token refund rates.... yet they severely nerfed them all. No toning down... they just outright nuked them.

As you noted in another thread recently, devs can't be expected to note *every* change. I concur that the number of JJ complaints >> cert complaints, so in a way it makes sense that BW called out the change that would affect the largest part of the controversy. Furthermore, changing one drop rate implies adjusting others (since you need the sum of probabilities to equal one), so leaving out the changes to the "less controversial" items (green/blue JJ, certs) as well as necessary changes to compensate for the lowered rates is understandable.

 

C) I said nothing about patch notes whatsoever... so stop with the deliberate misdirecton. My comments were about ongoing forum discussion, including comments by the studio, in the time prior to the studio patching.

This is a rather long thread, and almost two years old, so I apologize if I had you incorrectly grouped with the "birthers".

 

What players ended up with was a reputation token dispenser. It probably should have been released that way to begin with and players would have embraced it for what it was. Then, we might also have gotten slots for other Galactic Market rep factions as well. Instead... they killed the idea completely.

 

If the CSM could talk, here's what it would say to the devs:

Edited December 13, 2016 by eartharioch

[DawnAskham]

Actually there was plenty of that from both sides of the fence...and it seems folks on both sides are still upset about it now...

 

Case in point? Your post and others like it. Glass houses....

 

Mine is more of a of gleeful 'I told you so' regarding the fact it was going to get nerfed, along with a bit of 'all in good jest' poking at players such as yourself that kept throwing out silly 'compromise' positions in a desperate attempt to keep an unlimited free crafting mats decoration in the game.

 

But good to see you are still around - I always enjoyed reading your well formatted posts that were usually full of nonsense.

 

Nothing like a good laugh in the morning, especially one that is easy to read.

[eartharioch]

Actually there was plenty of that from both sides of the fence...and it seems folks on both sides are still upset about it now...

 

Case in point? Your post and others like it. Glass houses....

 

I don't know, I don't see a lot of tears on my side of the fence...usually have to go to your side to find them

[LordArtemis]

Mine is more of a of gleeful 'I told you so' regarding the fact it was going to get nerfed, along with a bit of 'all in good jest' poking at players such as yourself that kept throwing out silly 'compromise' positions in a desperate attempt to keep an unlimited free crafting mats decoration in the game.

 

But good to see you are still around - I always enjoyed reading your well formatted posts that were usually full of nonsense.

 

Nothing like a good laugh in the morning, especially one that is easy to read.

 

Heh. Fair enough. I agree, my suggestions are usually awful. Your posts have proved just as entertaining as times...though probably not as silly as mine from time to time. You certainly did call it right, and most certainly expressed your joy over the changes at the time, if I remember correctly.

 

I think you may find error in your assumptions with respect to my intentions, however. If there is one thing I am fairly sure of Dawn, it is that you are not privy to my motivations.

 

Perhaps it might be best not to make silly judgements like that in the future.

Edited December 13, 2016 by LordArtemis

[LordArtemis]

I don't know, I don't see a lot of tears on my side of the fence...usually have to go to your side to find them

 

Plenty of that when it was first released Earth. In fact most of the complaints came from that side in the beginning.

 

...I realize tears=complaints. I just don't like to use juvenile banter like that

[jimmorrisson]

Might as well remove the Cartel Certificate Rep Vendors as it's nigh impossible to most to get rep or certificates for purchases.

[eartharioch]

Plenty of that when it was first released Earth. In fact most of the complaints came from that side in the beginning.

 

...I realize tears=complaints. I just don't like to use juvenile banter like that

 

TBF, there were only five days of tears on my side, so they're pretty much all dried up now...your side has been making new ones for the last 700 or so days

 

That said, I don't see us as actually being on different sides of a fence as much as playing a game of tennis...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGEYFE7e_R8

 

(And if you define your "side" as wishing BW could resurrect the machine in a way that would be fun, give people reasons to visit other players' strongholds, and not be game-breaking, than we *are* on the same side. I'm not *happy* that BW did the nerf it did, I just more sympathetic as to the *why*.)

[MeNaCe-NZ]

LOL, confused <> salty. People (including me) discussed the abusive drop rate of the certs (which is what you mean when you say "the whole loot table"), they just didn't get *as much* air time because they were much less problematic -- but "much less problematic" than [purple] jawa junk is a *far* cry from being anywhere close to acceptable as was.

 

Certs needed to be nerfed -- not necessarily as hard as they were, but they needed nerfing. The only thing patch notes would have given you is another 24 hours or so of abusing the machine. Quit acting like *the lack of notice* was the straw that broke your back.

 

But but but it was bait and switch! They purposely lured people in to buy 100's of packs to get one of these machines knowing full well they would nerf them!

[MeNaCe-NZ]

On average, it costs 2.5 million credits to get one Cartel Certificate out of a Contraband slot machine.

That does NOT need nerfing. Nerfing that any farther would make the machine a complete waste of time.

 

I would love to see the addition of more playable slot machines that drop various types of rep or tokens.

 

What ever happened to the Nightlife event promised for this summer? I hope it will still return soon.

 

Where did you get those numbers from exactly?

[eartharioch]

But but but it was bait and switch! They purposely lured people in to buy 100's of packs to get one of these machines knowing full well they would nerf them!

 

So you've seen the rough draft of my N-Day speech...http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=9160160&postcount=15

 

I was hoping to get the original voice actor, but he has passed away.

Edited December 14, 2016 by eartharioch

[melodylane]

AAHHHH!!!! Kill this thread! Kill it with 🔥! 😱😱😱

[Tsetso]

AAHHHH!!!! Kill this thread! Kill it with 🔥! 😱😱😱

 

but we're aiming for the 3k snipe

[eartharioch]

What is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger

[Galahard]

On average, it costs 2.5 million credits to get one Cartel Certificate out of a Contraband slot machine.

That does NOT need nerfing. Nerfing that any farther would make the machine a complete waste of time.

 

I would love to see the addition of more playable slot machines that drop various types of rep or tokens.

 

What ever happened to the Nightlife event promised for this summer? I hope it will still return soon.

I'd like to see where you get those numbers from.

I am on about cartel chip 250 and I already have two Cartel Market Certificates. The 250 cartel chips cost me 187 500 credits, so it's really not as bad as depicted here.

At my first Cartel Market Certificate, I just thought I was extra lucky (at about 50 cartel chips), but after the second, I was beginning to think that I cannot be that lucky.

Maybe they have buffed the odds in stealth?

Edited December 16, 2016 by Galahard

[Dilemmas]

I'd like to see where you get those numbers from.

I am on about cartel chip 250 and I already have two Cartel Market Certificates. The 250 cartel chips cost me 187 500 credits, so it's really not as bad as depicted here.

At my first Cartel Market Certificate, I just thought I was extra lucky (at about 50 cartel chips), but after the second, I was beginning to think that I cannot be that lucky.

Maybe they have buffed the odds in stealth?

 

I'm a few thousand chips in (4k? I can't remember) and I have 2. You're very lucky so far, but that luck should average out as you keep going - you're bound to hit a massive cert drought as you continue.

[Muljo_Stpho]

Where did you get those numbers from exactly?

 

Estimates saying "this particular drop's average cost is X" are always kind of sketchy but if I recall the idea is that you derive it from the drop rate... Let's see, 0.05% chance on each spin to get a certificate... That's a 1 in 2000 chance. So the expectation (results can always be better or worse than this because of RNG, of course) is that for every 2000 tokens you run through the machine you'll get 1 certificate. 2000 tokens at 750 credits apiece is... 1.5 million. (So I don't know where they think they're getting 2.5 mil from. That amount is wrong.)

 

Of course, the sketchy part about making an estimation like that is that this one result is not the only thing you obtained with those 2000 tokens / with those 1.5 mil credits. (Rarest and most expensive portion of it, sure. But you do get other drops for that money.) Punching 2000 into the old spreadsheet that I've still got sitting around from way back... The expectation for your 2000 spins would be that you'll end up with 900 losses, 400 returned tokens, 340 green rep, 260 blue rep, 90 purple rep, 4 green scrap, 3 blue scrap, 2 purple scrap, and 1 certificate.

 

Of course then those 400 returned tokens get run through the machine, and you'll have some more returned tokens among that set of results so those carry forward as well. Ultimately after all of the tokens have been burned off the sum of the expected results of each of those rounds of using the machine will be 424.97 green rep, 325.00 blue rep, 112.50 purple rep, 5.00 green scrap, 3.75 blue scrap, 2.50 purple scrap, 1.25 cartel certificate, and 0.02 mount.

 

And then you can also point out that if you've got the rep maxed out already you're going to be selling all the rep items to the vendor for 425 * 500 + 325 * 1000 + 113 * 2500 = 820,000 credits. Meaning that you only actually lost 680,000 credits to obtain 5 green scrap, 3-4 blue scrap, 2-3 purple scrap, 1 (maybe 2 occasionally) certificate, and most likely no mount (except on a very very rare occasion).

 

You want something really crazy though? I've also got work in this spreadsheet where I had tried to really take it a step further and assume that credits returned from selling rep items always gets reinvested back into buying more tokens. Let's see... In that sheet, starting with a 2000 tokens initial investment and reinvesting all credits won back through rep items... In the end, after all tokens and all rep has been burned off, your expected average total will be 11.009 green scrap, 8.257 blue scrap, 5.504 purple scrap, 2.752 certificates, and 0.055 mounts. (Those numbers are a bit better than double the results before reinvesting like this.) So for the full investment of 1.5 mil (no banking the returns) you ended up with 11 green scrap, 8 (maybe 9 occasionally) blue scrap, 5-6 purple scrap, 2-3 certificates, and probably still no mount (except on a very rare occasion).

 

It's just more work / more of a time sink to squeeze the most out of your investment like that.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Muljo_Stpho

[AlphaTmoore]

I think I have some better rates.

I have been using this over the past couple days in order to get Revan's mask, and here is what I found.

(Keep in mind, this is after I already had Legend Standing with the reputation vendor, which isn't hard to do considering all the reputation drops, so any reputation drops I got I was able to sell back)

 

My first batch I spent $2,250,000 for a total of 3000 chips, I got:

 

Prohibited Med Supplies (469 worth $469,000) (15.63%)

Banned Holovids (613 worth $306,000) (20.43%)

Confiscated Artwork (182 worth $455,000) (6.06%)

Jawa Junk (5 worth $1,500) (0.16%)

Scavenged Scrap (9 worth $450) (0.3%)

Assorted Droid Parts (3 worth $450) (0.1%)

Cartel Certificates (2) (0.066%)

 

I sold the PMS, BH, and CA for $1,230,500, meaning for a net $1,019,500 I got 2 Certificates and some junk.

 

My next Batch was a full stack of 9,999 coins, worth $7,499,250 (yikes, ikr) which should give more accurate percentages considering the larger sample size.

 

Prohibited Med Supplies (1632 worth $1,632,000) (16.32%)

Banned Holovids (2048 worth $1,024,000) (20.48%)

Confiscated Artwork (507 worth $1,267,500) (5.07%)

Jawa Junk (13 worth $3,900) (0.13%)

Scavenged Scrap (24 worth $1,200) (0.24%)

Assorted Droid Parts (19 worth $2,850) (0.19%)

Cartel Certificates (8) (0.08%)

FA3 Recon Walker (1) (x < .01%)

Nothing (5748) (57.48%)

 

Once again, sold the PMS, BH, and CA for a total of $3,923,500, meaning I spent a net of $3,575,750 and got 8 certificates, a FA3 Recon Walker, and some scrap.

 

It seems as the percentages for everything stays pretty close between the two sample sizes. Each Cartel Certificate has between a .06% and a .08% of dropping. If you decide to keep the reputation (you can cap out after spending 1 mil) it will cost you between $937,406 and $1,125,000 per certificate, but once you reach max reputation, if you sell every reputation item you get it will cost you between $446,968 and $509,750 per certificate.

 

I hope this helps somebody out there, please reply if it helped you!

And remember, everyone looks good in purple.

[Xo-Lara]

I think I have some better rates.

I have been using this over the past couple days in order to get Revan's mask, and here is what I found...

 

That was useful information.

 

I'd like to take a moment to bump the thread and ask that the machines be buffed slightly. It was a good idea and players were eager to use the machine. It was the nerf that dampened the enthusiasm for it. It would still be a good idea for other reputation, it just needs a slight buff like companions.

 

I'm sure reasonably people would wait while you tweak it a few times to find a better compromise between what players want and what Devs intend to give.